


Sound the Drums

by LouPF



Series: Walking in Starlit Fields (and Memories) [7]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mortality, POV First Person, Sindarin, without explanation suckers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 14:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20229346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouPF/pseuds/LouPF
Summary: Gimli is aging. Legolas is terrified.





	Sound the Drums

“Gimli,” Legolas said. His hands were in my hair, and they were trembling. “Gimli, meleth…”

While I couldn’t be sure what exactly my daft Elf was worried about this time, the tone to his voice was familiar. “Aye?”

He drew a sharp breath behind me. It shuddered and rose, escalated – shattered, at the top, broke in a cascade of a muffled sob. “Your hair,” he whispered, and the fingers curled around my hair tightened, tightened, tugging. “The – it’s – ”

And I understood. I raised a hand, putting it atop Legolas’. “The last strand,” I said, toning my voice down to be as gentle as I could. I knew Legolas had kept count. From the very first white strand, all the way down to this. The last red had turned white.

I needed no proof, but still it confirmed my thoughts when Legolas buckled forward, pressing his face into my hair. “Legolas,” I said, clutching at his hand, “Legolas, love, look at me.” He took a step back, letting me turn around on the stool, grasping his hands in mine. “What does this change?”

There were thick tears running down his cheeks – thick, yet silent, as they always were with him. “Nothing,” he whispered. “Gimli…”

“I know, Legolas,” I whispered back, leaning across the space between us to kiss him gently. “We will sail, and I will perish, and you will live. It hurts. I know, Legolas, oh, I _know._”

“Your journey,” Legolas said, cupping my face in one slender hand, “it will continue – ”

I laughed. It was a dry laugh – not in a sarcastic way, rather in the way of a crumbling tree, or withering chalk. “Whatever my soul is made of,” I said, grinning up at him, “it does not belong here. I shan’t pass into any Hall, be it Mahal’s or otherwise.”

“Where will you go?” Legolas whispered.

“No idea,” I said truthfully. “On to live once again, I suppose.”

Legolas’ fingers tightened around a wisp of my beard. “Here?” His voice cracked.

“I dare not hope,” I admitted quietly. “I have been here rarely before – at least once, aye, but – ”

His eyes were dark with sorrow. “This is not your home world,” he finished for me.

I did not answer, only hooked my fingers around his neck, bringing him close enough to press our foreheads together. “It is yours,” I whispered. “I will leave, Legolas. You might…”

He clutched me, pulling me closer, closer, so close I could feel his heart beat against mine. “You do not know that!” he said harshly. “I might pass on, like you, after – ”

“We might not go to the same place,” I said, soothingly, softly, as gently as I could. “Oh, Legolas, we might find each other anew, but what is the guarantee that we Remember?” I wanted to say more, to ease his worries, but I found that I could not – that all the losses, all the pain of not having him there, they lined up before my eyes. Instead I surged forward, wrapping my arms around his neck, pressing my nose against his skin, breathing, breathing, breathing. “Legolas,” I whispered, “Legolas, Legolas, _Legolas –_ ”

He held me back, shedding quiet tears. “_Gimli_,” he responded, and then, quietly, softly, his mouth close to my ear, he uttered my Name. “And so, if I die, then what?”

I stiffened. “Don’t say that,” I whispered, clutching him closer, holding him tighter – wishing we could merge, that maybe if I just pushed hard enough – that he could be like me, a wanderer, so I could just…

“_If I die_,” he repeated, “then _what_?”

“I don’t know,” I said, truthfully, my fingers digging into his shoulder blades. “Legolas, no. _No._”

“Life without you is not life,” Legolas claimed, and though he sounded brave, he also sounded terrified.

I pulled back, reaching up to push his hair out of his face, curling my fingers around his ears. “And if your soul is sundered? If your soul rests in your breath, in your heart, in your blood?” He was trembling under my touch. “Legolas, Legolas, _please_, do not say such things – if we do not find each other, if you are born to more suffering – ” I cut off with a soft curse, bringing him closer again, breathing harshly through my nose as I rested my forehead against his. “Do not speak lightly of death, Legolas, my Legolas, my light, not even yours – ”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then he kissed me, light and soft. “I’m sorry, meleth, so sorry,” – and he kissed me again, and again, peppering kisses on my face, my cheeks, my nose, hands fluttering across my shoulders, my arms, my back. “It just – I wish for nothing more than spend – eternity with you – ”

“There are other stars on the sky,” I whispered, despite slowly growing light-headed at the pace my dear elf was moving.

“Aye,” Legolas agreed, at last pulling properly back and meeting my gaze. There was such a deep sorrow in his eyes that my heart _trembled_. “Yet you are forever the brightest.”

“Love,” I whispered, choked-off, _desperate_. “Promise me, please,” and I slipped into Sindarin, like I so rarely did, “meleth, tirn ned gûr nin, _promise me _not to leave this world before your time –” I breathed, breathed, breathed. “Your departure will come in due time, but dear, I beg of you, do not hasten it. I will wait. I will find you.”

Legolas choked. “Promise?” he whispered. “Promise you will? Whenever you may?”

I grasped his fingers, clutched at them, pulled them against my beard, through it – against my chest where my heart was beating, calling _Legolas, Legolas, Legolas. _“I promise,” I said, as fiercely as I could, “that I will find you. Whenever I may.”

“I will never stop looking,” Legolas returned, vowing as I. “Never. No matter where I am.”

“Legolas,” I said, and I fell forward, kissing him again.

“Gimli,” he whispered against my lips, an answer to my cry, and his mouth moved with mine.


End file.
